The Inappropriate, Inaccurate, and Misleading Use of language to Malign Wine, Beer & Spirits

An examination of journalistic malpractice in the service of an agenda

I’ve reported on efforts to use or change the language surrounding wine and alcohol to advance ideological agendas. Most recently I’ve looked at a move to alter the “lexicon of wine” in order to make wine more “inclusive”. What distinguishes this kind of effort to manipulate language surrounding wine and alcohol from others is that those people behind them are upfront and honest about how they would like to use language to change hearts and minds.

While I think this effort is misguided, I respect it for not trying to hide the ball. There are other efforts to manipulate language around alcohol that are not so upfront. I want to explore one such example because it is only the tip of the iceberg; an effort to use sleight of hand language to malign wine, beer, spirits, cider, and every other alcohol along with every facet of the alcohol industry.

I’ll say here at the beginning that I am perhaps too attentive to how words and phrases are used. “Pedantic” is how some have described my sometimes nit-picky complaints about language use. My objections often boil down to folks who misrepresent reality with seemingly accurate language or who intentionally misuse certain powerful words to harness their power for the benefit of their most favored cause. The outcome of these kinds of intentional misuses of language is that reality is misrepresented on behalf of ideology (and also the language is degraded).

Maybe I am too attentive to the misuse of words and phrases. Maybe “pedantic” is the right way to describe my concerns in this area. But the reason I am focused on the language used to describe wine and alcohol is that I have a heightened appreciation for the impact that words when properly or improperly used, can have. Let me show you what I mean.

Friday, an article by reporter Grant Stringer was published in the Oregon Capitol Chronicle and picked up in a number of other media outlets about the first meeting of the Oregon Alcohol Pricing and Addiction Services Task Force. This task force was created by legislation in 2023 after advocates of hugely excessive excise tax increases on alcohol in Oregon didn’t get what they wanted. These advocates wanted more money in Oregon directed toward substance abuse and addiction services and thought they’d raise alcohol excise taxes from 500% to 1,200% on different types of alcohol to raise the funds. These comically absurd proposals were ignored, never really taken seriously, and died in committee. However, to satisfy the advocates of these tax hikes and the sponsor of the bills, Rep. Tawna Sanchez, a “Task Force” was created to investigate the issue. The first meeting took place a few days ago.

In Stringer’s article reporting on the Task Force’s first meeting, he wrote and reported the following:

Alcohol kills more than 2,000 people and costs the state nearly $5 billion a year…

Alcohol takes a big toll on Oregonians: It’s the third preventable cause of death in the state…

Nationally, the federal agency says alcohol kills 140,000 people in the U.S. a year…

Can you see why I might have a problem with how Mr. Stringer composed these sentences?

In each of the three cases listed above, Stringer was reporting what official health agencies had said about alcohol.

The first two sentences come from a web page of the Oregon Health Authority. Click that link there and take a look at what the Oregon Health Authority says about alcohol and preventable death.

The third quote about total deaths from alcohol annually comes from a page on the website of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, a federal agency. Go ahead and click through and see what it says.

In all three quotes, harms are attributed to “Alcohol”. But as you saw when you clicked through to reporter Grant Stringer’s sources, nowhere are these harms attributed to alcohol. Rather, they are each attributed to EXCESSIVE alcohol USE

Do you see what Mr. Stringer did there, besides committing journalistic malpractice? He intentionally removed the words “excessive” and “use” that both the Oregon Health Authority and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention surround the word “alcohol” with in order to accurately describe what is happening.

Under Mr. Stringer’s rendering, it appears that alcohol itself is responsible for deaths and billions in costs to the state when in fact it’s “excessive use” of alcohol that is responsible.

Now, this is where some folks turn to me and say, “Holy shit, Wark, that’s pedantic as hell of you. Leave the boy alone. He’s just trying to report on the Task Force.”

But there really is a problem with what Mr. Stringer has done here and there are consequences to this kind of unethical reporting. And I explained it to him this way in an email I sent to him:

“In all three cases, you have misquoted these agencies. These agencies do not attribute these harms to “alcohol”. They attribute these harms to “Excessive alcohol use”. You have removed the term “excessive” from all three. This may seem like a small omission, but by removing this modifier the meaning is completely changed. In its original usage, the agencies are pointing to unsafe use of alcohol; to over-consumption; to immoderate use of alcohol; to “excessive alcohol use”. But in your rendering, the message is that alcohol alone kills 2000 people per year in Oregon, that “alcohol” alone is a preventable cause of death; that “alcohol” alone kills 140,000 people a year in the U.S.

Your rendering is somewhat nonsensical as we know that alcohol is an inanimate object and can do nothing on its own. This is of course why the the OHA and the CDCP use the term “Excessive alcohol use”. 

The other problem with your rendering is that it demeans alcohol in general and by association all use of alcohol. As you are aware, the vast and overwhelming majority of alcohol users do so responsibly and in moderation.”

The effort to demonize alcohol use, even in the most moderate form, is an international problem that is impacting the wine, beer, and spirits industries. In the most recent Silicon Valley Bank “State of the U.S. Wine Industry” report, it was noted that “The anti-alcohol lobby led by the World Health Organization is having success with its message – truthful or not, that 'there is no safe amount of alcohol to drink.’ ”

The false message passed on by reporter Grant Stringer in his article on the Oregon Task Force is just as harmful to the wine and alcohol industry as the World Health Organization’s cynical message that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption.

Stringer’s false reporting is not unique, just a particularly egregious example of attributing harm to an inanimate object rather than to the way that object is used. Do a Google search on the term “Alcohol Kills” and you will find thousands upon thousands of examples of this term’s use. However, they are almost always used in the headlines of articles that go on to be a little more accurate in the body of the article where “abuse of alcohol” or “excessive alcohol use” is identified as the culprit for death and societal costs.

That kind of lazy headline writing is bad enough.

But what you will also find in that Google search is those anti-alcohol advocates will often use the phrase “Alcohol Kills…” or otherwise attribute to alcohol alone and not its misuse any number of problems and harms.

At the very meeting of the Alcohol Task Force upon which Grant Stringer was reporting, one Task Force member, Dr. Tom Jeanne, an epidemiologist and deputy state health officer at the Oregon Health Authority, was speaking to his colleagues on the task force and said the following:

“Alcohol is responsible for about $4.8 billion dollars of costs including healthcare costs, criminal justice costs, lost productivity, and many others…We also want to raise awareness of the large harms and burdens we face as a state from alcohol.”

Dr. Peter’s is used to talking in this highly inaccurate way probably because nobody has ever corrected him. “Alcohol” is not responsible for any of the things he mentions. Rather it’s “excessive use” of alcohol. We know this because it says so right there on his employer’s website at the Oregon Health Authority.

For Grant Stringer and his reporting, there are only three possible reasons for his deceptive use of the term “Alcohol Kills”. Any one of them or any combination of them can explain his inappropriate use of language in this article:

1. He’s a lazy reporter
2. See #1, plus he has no editor or no competent editor
3. He has an ideological agenda to demonize alcohol

I believe it’s a combination of all three.

In pointing all this out, I don’t care if I come off as pedantic. I don’t care if it’s seen as nit-picking. What I care about, and what other members of the wine and alcohol industries should care about, is that if we are going to be forced to witness a public effort to demonize alcohol and severely diminish the wine and alcohol industry through an effort to severely diminish both unhealthy excessive alcohol consumption as well as healthy moderate drinking, then those folks doing the demonizing ought to be held to account for the way they carry out this campaign.

As for the task force on Oregon Alcohol Pricing and Addiction Services, it should be made clear that its only real purpose is to provide cover for a new proposal to raise excise taxes on alcohol in Oregon. The task force will issue a report in September with recommendations to the legislature. Whether it will go the comedy route and recommend excise taxes be increased by 500% to 1,200% is unlikely. While lawmakers tend to approve of tax increases, they are not a truly suicidal bunch. However, there is going to be a recommendation for tax increases on alcohol.

We know this because of the 16 members of the task force only 6 represent the alcohol industry in Oregon. They will be outvoted by the rest of the task force, at least 8 of which are anti-alcohol, prevention advocates. Moreover, the chairperson of the committee (though a non-voting member) is Representative Tawna Sanchez, the lawmaker who thought it was a good idea to propose a 1,200% increase on alcohol excise taxes and who, after seeing her tax hike bill go down in flames, authored the bill that created this Task Force.

I’ll be monitoring the work of the Task Force to see just how frequently inappropriate, inaccurate, and misleading language is used to demonize alcohol.